me back to, somebody to look
forward to. And it's a WOMAN; it ain't one of these darn gangle-leg
cowgirls. The great thing is to feel you BELONG to someone; and that
someone nice and cool and fresh and purty is waitin' for you when you
come in tired. It beats that other little old idee of mine slick as a
gun barrel."

So, during this, the busy season of the range riding, immediately
before the great fall round-ups, Senor Johnson rode abroad all day, and
returned to his own hearth as many evenings of the week as he could.
Estrella always saw him coming and stood in the doorway to greet him.
He kicked off his spurs, washed and dusted himself, and spent the
evening with his wife. He liked the sound of exactly that phrase, and
was fond of repeating it to himself in a variety of connections.

"When I get in I'll spend the evening with my wife." "If I don't ride
over to Circle I, I'll spend the evening with my wife," and so on. He
had a good deal to tell her of the day's discoveries, the state of the
range, and the condition of the cattle. To all of this she listened at
least with patience. Senor Johnson, like most men who have long
delayed marriage, was self-centred without knowing it. His interest in
his mate had to do with her personality rather than with her doings.

"What you do with yourself all day to-day?" he occasionally inquired.

"Oh, there's lots to do," she would answer, a trifle listlessly; and
this reply always seemed quite to satisfy his interest in the subject.

Senor Johnson, with a curiously instant transformation often to be
observed among the adventurous, settled luxuriously into the state of
being a married man. Its smallest details gave him distinct and
separate sensations of pleasure.

"I plumb likes it all," he said. "I likes havin' interest in some fool
geranium plant, and I likes worryin' about the screen doors and all the
rest of the plumb foolishness. It does me good. It feels like
stretchin' your legs in front of a good warm fire."

The centre, the compelling influence of this new state of affairs, was
undoubtedly Estrella, and yet it is equally to be doubted whether she
stood for more than the suggestion. Senor Johnson conducted his entire
life with reference to his wife. His waking hours were concerned only
with the thought of her, his every act revolved in its orbit controlled
by her influence. Nevertheless she, as an individual human being, had
little to do with it. Sen